


Simple

by ShepherdSoreyDidNothingWrong (Sagnessagiel)



Category: Tales of Zestiria
Genre: I was pretty much dared to write angst, M/M, fear me, sads, that's about it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-24
Updated: 2016-10-24
Packaged: 2018-08-24 12:32:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8372386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sagnessagiel/pseuds/ShepherdSoreyDidNothingWrong
Summary: Sorey slept for a long time.





	

The world is a beautiful place. Sorey as always thought so. Even from the far reaches of Elysia, safe in Gramp's enveloping domain, he was hungry for the beauty of the world around him. At the time, he would have given anything to save that world. He supposes that in a way, he did.

When Sorey wakes up, he finds a world in which there is happiness and hope. A seemingly young new world of purity and innocence, cleansed from Heldalf and Maotelus' wrath. It is beautiful to see, but Sorey cannot find it in himself to care. Not just yet. 

Mikleo is nowhere to be seen. 

He searches for weeks and months and even years, finding everyone and everything he knew. It provides a little bit of comfort in this new, wide world. This "space", as they call it. New kinds of ships and travel and communication, and everyone he meets is happy to tell him about it. It is a treasure trove of new discoveries for him and Mikleo to make. However, no one will tell him anything about Mikleo.

No one will admit to knowing. 

Sorey looks as far as he dares on his own. None of his old friends will accompany him. Without the malevolence, they say, there is no need to go together. Sorey will find him soon enough. They know this. Sorey knows this. He will not stop until he finds him again.

It should only be fitting that he finds Lailah last. 

She has to tell him, she says. There is nothing else she can do, and she thinks she can talk him out of going. Feeling suddenly empty inside, Sorey cannot figure out what ever made her think that. He has to go. There is nothing else he ever could do.

He laughs brokenly and tells her that he will fight her if he has to. Everything in him is very suddenly flipped, turned upside down. It is a frightening feeling. He says it as casually as though discussing the weather. Lailah understands. She does. 

She is old - experienced - but Sorey has Maotelus' lingering presence in him. He does not know how to let go. He hopes that the old god will figure it out in time. For both their sakes.

He goes.

* * *

 

Mikleo waits for a millennium. Then another one, and then another. He grows, and lets the world envelop him. Headlong, he leaps. It rings hollow in the hole in his chest. He keeps it up, travels around the world, makes friends that make his heart flutter with joy, but they disappear soon enough. Smoke in his hands. The Seraphim warn him off, but he cannot stay away from the humans. He needs them, just as they need him. 

He has been a sub lord, a prime lord, a bodyguard, a patron, a lord of the land, a friend, a lover, a father, a grandfather and great grandfather. All the while missing the most essential piece of his heart. He leaves his mark on the world. Sorey would be proud.

But Sorey cannot be proud. He cannot be anything anymore, except an image. Drawings in yellowed pages, paintings, digital prints and holograms. Each time his features fade from memory just a little bit more. The only times Mikleo ever really cries is when he tries to recall Sorey's face in detail. Everything else he can take. 

He is getting too old. Too tired. They can all see it on his face. Lailah, Zaveid, Edna, they all have at least a few hundred years on him, but in time he becomes the oldest of them all. It shows in the lines of his face. The set to his shoulders when he speaks, how he shies away from physical affection. It is getting to be too much. 

When he turns three thousand, six hundred and fifteen, he calls no one to celebrate. He gets a few greetings, a holo-mail here and there, but nothing that really requires any emotion anymore. The world has grown too young for him. Too quick and energetic. He is too tired. He just wants to rest. 

So he does. He calls Lailah one last time, tells her not to her face (there rarely ever are faces anymore) but to her holographic image that it is enough. He cannot do it anymore. Then he hangs up before she has any time to argue. They will be on their way soon. He leaves his ship for an abandoned planet in an unnamed star system.

It figures that the only real traces of humanity left in him would be just enough for this. Love. Not the Seraphim kind, the elegant, pure, blameless kind. The human kind. Stupid, childlike, unreasonable. Damning. It has always been with him, and he can almost imagine he knew that it would collapse in on him. Sooner or later. 

He lays down in a cave, and he does not move for seventy years. After so much time waiting, the transformation takes almost nothing. It is almost like it has always been there, just under the surface. His true form. His love, made flesh. Made ice. 

It feels almost liberating. Comforting. Like slipping under a blanket in a cold room, knowing you are safe from the reaching hands in the darkness. It is the last safety he thinks he will ever have. Somehow, he does not mind.

* * *

 

Sorey could never see Mikleo as anything but beautiful. There was never anything else in his eyes. This is no different. 

Nestled deep in the cave, covered in moss and dirt and ash, he looks almost - almost - serene. His eyes are the same bright amethyst, but now they pulse with untamed and restless malevolence. With no malevolence left, they said to him. 

Sorey could have created this image himself had he only known how gravely they were lying to him. He is sure of it. 

He does not know how Mikleo will react to his approach. It does not matter. As long as he is there, anything would be acceptable. There is nothing you can do to purify a dragon. That fact has not changed in three thousand years.

Mikleo almost does nothing. The malevolence in the air almost makes Sorey sick to his stomach (the way it pulses in his chest feels different, like something else, what, what?) but the dragon does not move. His eyes remain on Sorey's, and Seraphim help him, Sorey can feel him again. A missing piece is nestling into his heart, his lungs, the air he breathes, and he wants to keep it within himself forever. The world be damned.

The malevolence beats within him. A heart, like the one he has been missing for thee thousand years. He has found it again.

* * *

 

He is too old, and Sorey looks so young. New. So worthy of everything in the world, just the way Mikleo left him. But he isn't the way Mikleo left him. Instead he is something older, stronger. More worthy of praise and admiration. There is no greater loss than this, he thinks. 

His chest aches as Sorey approaches. Using the only strength he has left, the last precious reserve he has saved for Sorey, he lifts his head and lets out an anguished wail. Sounding with his deformed jaws the words he can no longer speak. 

Sorey understands, he always does. He reaches out his hands, placating. 

"It's okay, Mikleo." His voice shakes, and Mikleo has not heard that voice in so long. Had he still the eyes for it, he would weep for how weak he is. How weak they both are. 

There is so much left to Sorey. No amount of books could ever capture his potential, the life he could have, but Mikleo knows that there will be no more books. No more songs, plays, legends, stories, memories of him. There will be nothing left, and Mikleo cannot do a damned thing to stop it. Is it because he has no say or because he does not want to? Does it matter anymore?

The malevolence pulses within him. The last love he has in his heart. The very thing that will surely kill the shepherd's light once and for all. 

Sorey lays down at his side, and Mikleo lays his head over him. Shielding him from the world. Locking him in with nothing more than his pure helplessness to resist. The only thing left pure about him. It is almost simple. Easy. Sorey will stay. Besides the one exception, he always did. He will stay there forever if he has to. 

Just like Mikleo waited.

**Author's Note:**

> This is your fault Saiki. Go sit in a corner and think about what you've done.


End file.
